Posted on September 17, 2000

• First of all, I would like to thank everyone who wrote to wish me a happy birthday. It was wonderful. Jessie and I had a nice sunset dinner at Qwiig’s in Ocean Beach and then we had some ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. What more could one ask for? She got me some spiffy shirts too 🙂

  After my “big day” I immediately got back to work on “Subterranean”. I liked the underwater effect (as did a lot of you, from the notes you sent me), but I didn’t think it worked for the scene that I had created. I decided to start again from scratch and make a “dedicated” underwater pic (rather than a “converted” one). I’ve been working on it all week.

  Now the bad part. You know how the experts always recommend you backup your hard disk? Usually I’m pretty good about it, but lately I’ve haven’t been doing it as much as I should. Now it appears I’m going to pay for my laziness. My “data” disk, where I keep all my Lightwave meshes, textures, and scenes, has failed. It refuses to start up with the rest of my system and I cannot get at any of my data. Needless to say, I’m distressed. The only thing I can think of to do now is send the disc out to Ontrack to retrieve my lost data.

  Fortunately, one render survived of the project I was working on all week. I rendered it on Friday, but I wanted to tweak a few things before I posted it. Looks like I won’t get to…

  The image is called “Rays from Above” and you’ll find it on the New Images page. Hope you like it as is. I plan to finish it when I get my data situation straightened out.

  Remember — always back up your hard disk!